


Meant to Be

by nagi_schwarz



Series: Circle of Fifths [2]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-23
Updated: 2018-03-23
Packaged: 2019-04-06 17:24:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14061768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagi_schwarz/pseuds/nagi_schwarz
Summary: Written for the music comment_fic prompt: "Stargate Atlantis, John Sheppard/Rodney McKay, Rodney teaches their child(ren) to play the piano."Rodney is suspicious when JJ comes to him with a request for help learning a song on the piano.





	Meant to Be

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ami_ven](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ami_ven/gifts).



“Dad, will you teach me how to play this song on the piano?” JJ sat down next to Rodney and held out her phone, tapped the screen to set a song going.

Rodney listened to the opening notes, the deep voice. _“Elvis?_ You want to learn an Elvis song? Since when do you listen to country?”

JJ raised her eyebrows at him, and Rodney realized. John liked Johnny Cash and really a surprising amount of country music, for a man who’d grown up wealthier than the Queen of England. Granted, he was from Virginia, which was technically the South, and apparently there was a high concentration of Southerners in the military (all that _God and country and firearms_ nonsense), so perhaps his taste in music made sense.

Didn’t mean Rodney liked it, though.

Or that he wanted John corrupting his daughter’s taste in music, the taste in music that Rodney and Jennifer had both honed so carefully. JJ appreciated Rachmaninoff and Tchaikovsky and Rimsky-Korsakov and Saint-Saens.

And now apparently Elvis. Rodney would take Johnny Cash over Elvis.

Especially over an Elvis love song.

His deep voice was soothing, though.

_I can’t help falling in love with you._

Rodney could appreciate that sentiment. He immediately thought of John, how he’d looked last night, spread out beneath Rodney on rumpled sheets -

“Daddy?” JJ asked, and Rodney snapped back to the present, because she’d called him _Daddy._

She only called him that when she wanted something.

“Yes, dear?”

“So can you help me learn this song or what?”

Rodney restarted the song, carried her phone over to the piano bench. She immediately scrambled to sit beside him, small and vulnerable and warm against him. His little girl. Wanted to learn love song.

And he realized. She was in love. This was an incredibly romantic song. Some other boy or girl at school had stolen her heart and was probably bribing her for kisses with candy or - what were kids getting up to in junior high these days? Rodney had been building nuclear weapons as early as grade six, but -

He eyed her warily, under pretense of listening to the song. What would be the best way to find out who she was crushing on? So he could get a background check on the little fiend.

“Well?” JJ asked.

Right. Piano lessons. “Remember the backbone of a song?”

Rodney and Jennifer had agreed to at least try JJ on the piano around the age of four, when Rodney had started. She’d never loved it as much as he did, but she could learn simple songs on her own, if she cared about them enough.

He wasn’t sure he wanted her to care about another boy or girl enough to go through this effort.

“The backbone of a song is the key,” JJ recited dutifully.

“Right. So, can you hear the key?” Rodney set the phone on the music rest.

JJ reached out, pressing keys tentatively, trying to find the melody. She had a good natural ear. Rodney could sight read music par excellence, but being able to play by ear as just as important a skill, if not more so.

Rodney sat patiently with her, listening to her pick out the melody, more confident with each pass.

“All right, there’s your melody. So, what’s the key?”

JJ played a scale slowly, making sure she picked out any flats and sharps she’d heard in the melody.

“All right, you’ve got the key. What’s the chord progression? You can play just the chord root if that’s easier.”

That took a few more passes, some scrubbing back and forth on the song to get it right, but eventually JJ got it, and must faster than she’d gotten the melody.

Rodney helped her by supplying the bass line in the form of single chord root notes. She had a simple arrangement now, melody and bass line. Very simplistic, not one Rodney would perform, but functional.

On the second pass, JJ took over the bass line for herself, and Rodney let his hand fall to his lap, watching the smile on her face.

“Well done. So, what’s the plan for the arrangement?”

JJ’s expression turned cagey.

Rodney thought about pressing for the identity of her crush, but then he said, “I mean, what do you plan to do with the song once you’ve learned it? Are you accompanying someone else on an instrument, or a singer?”

“I was planning on singing it myself,” JJ said.

She had a lovely voice; that wasn’t a bad idea. But that was also a whole lot of effort.

Whichever little gremlin at school had caught her eye had better be worth it.

“Okay, well, try singing it with the key it’s in.”

“I can’t sing as deep as Elvis,” JJ protested.

“Can you sing it an octave higher?”

JJ tried, but it was too high even for her.

“Okay, so we need to transpose it into a different key. Try down a whole step, but sing up an octave.”

“Whole step,” JJ echoed, pressing the next two keys till she found it.

“Play the scale,” Rodney reminded her gently, and she obeyed. She only fumbled one of the sharps, noticed and corrected herself immediately - her ear really was getting better - and then she started in again.

“Got it.”

“And then the new chord progression.”

That was a little more difficult, and Rodney had to resist the urge to correct JJ as she fumbled the simple bass line. She would never learn to hear the right notes for herself if she didn’t hear the wrong ones.

“All right, ready to try to sing?”

JJ nodded.

This time it sounded right.

“Okay,” Rodney said. “You’re singing the melody, and you’re probably going to want to ornament the vocals above and beyond what you’re playing on the keys, right?”

JJ nodded, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.

“Are you planning on having any other instruments with you?” Rodney asked.

JJ shook her head.

“Then my recommendation is that you keep rhythm for yourself, keep it simple with the right hand, ornament the bass line a bit more, and sing over top of that, and that should be sufficient for your purposes.”

“How so?”

Rodney flexed his fingers, then settled his hands on the keys. “Something like this. Some octaves on the left hand, maybe some thirds and fifths for the bass line ascending. Remember that lower notes are muddy and should be left singly or in octaves, but as you move up you can make the chords more complex without everything sounding crowded.” He crossed his hands, hitting the chord notes above his right hand in some soft trills. “Whatever you prefer for your voice. You’re accompanying yourself, so don’t overshadow your own voice, all right? Your voice is very lovely and deserves to be the center of attention.”

“Thanks, Daddy. You’re the best.” JJ pressed a kissed to Rodney’s cheek, and then she focused on the piano, testing the right hand.

Rodney knew he was being dismissed, so he retreated to his office to look at the grant proposal that Radek had drafted.

Over the weeks that followed, JJ practiced her new song diligently, spending half an hour every day at the piano. She shut herself in her room to practice her singing, for the most part, but sometimes as she drifted from her room to the bathroom Rodney heard a snatch of song before the shower drowned it out.

Rodney was suspicious. She was putting a lot of work into this performance. Whoever her crush was, if they weren’t blown away by all her hard work, they didn’t deserve her.

He tried to find out who it was, making casual inquiries of JJ over dinner about how her friends were doing, if anyone new had moved in to her class, if she had picked up a new subject or made new friends, but her life was the same: school and ballet with Madison.

Was anyone new at ballet?

When none of that worked, Rodney started asking John if JJ had told him anything about any new person, but as far as John knew, JJ’s best friend was still Madison.

“Are you all right?” John asked one night, while he and Rodney were washing the dishes together.

“I’m fine.”

“You seem - tense.”

“I think JJ has a crush on someone and I want to know who it is,” Rodney said.

John raised his eyebrows. “Well, she is about at that age -”

“Not helping! Who is it? Surely you know. Who did she fancy last year, when she was in your class?”

“Besides Evan? No one that I can recall.”

“Evan? He’s old enough to be her _father -”_

“And he’s happily married to Ronon,” John reminded him gently. “What makes you think she has a crush on someone?”

Rodney told him.

John considered. “Maybe. Or maybe she just wanted to learn a song.”

“Just learning a song would be learning - learning the theme from Swan Lake, not a - a _love song.”_

“Love songs are really common on the radio,” John said. “Has she been acting like she has a crush otherwise?”

“What do you mean?”

“You know, doodling someone’s name on her homework in hearts, talking about weddings and children, spending forever on the phone giggling with Madison, wondering what kinds of things her crush likes.”

Rodney stared at him. “You know an awful lot about having a crush.”

“I teach sixth grade,” John said.

“Right. Of course. And - no, now that you mention it.”

“Then just chalk it up to JJ taking more of an interest in honing her music skills and move on.” John pressed a kiss to the corner of Rodney’s mouth, and Rodney turned, kissed him more fully.

Okay. He’d let it go.

For now.

While John was kissing him like that.

Rodney came home late two weeks later after a disastrous day at the lab. He hung his coat up on the peg just inside the door, kicked off his shoes and nudged them onto the shoe rack, and paused at his office to set his briefcase down just inside the door.

Then he headed for the kitchen.

He paused, frowned, because the kitchen was totally dark.

“John? JJ? What’s going on?”

He’d called ahead to let both of them know he was going to be late as soon as he’d known, and John had said he’d stay late at school, get some grading done, and JJ had arranged to stay later with Jeannie and Madison. But Rodney had also texted them both as soon as he left the lab. Both of them had had plenty of time to get home.

“John?”

There was a hiss and a flare, a match being struck, and then - a candle lit. And another.

John was standing beside the kitchen table, which had been set for two.

“Welcome home, Rodney.”

John’s smile in the candlelight was soft and sweet.

A familiar piano riff rose from the den adjacent, and JJ began to sing.

 _Wise men say only fools rush in_ _  
_ _But I can’t help falling in love with you_

“Happy anniversary,” John said, and he crossed the kitchen, kissed Rodney hello.

Rodney kissed him back, mind racing. Their anniversary? That was today? Had they really been together for a whole year?

John wrapped his arms around Rodney’s waist and began to sway - to the music. Dancing with him.

 _Shall I stay?_   
_Would it be a sin?_ _  
I can’t help falling in love with you_

Rodney closed his eyes and pressed close to John, moving with him.

 _Like a river flows_   
_Surely to the sea_   
_Darling, so it goes_ _  
Some things are meant to be_

Rodney’s heart was pounding. John was warm and close, solid and alive, perfect in Rodney’s arms. After a day like today, coming home to this was beyond amazing.

As the song ended, John pulled back, curled his hand around Rodney’s and squeezed, mouthing the lyrics along with JJ’s singing.

 _Take my hand_   
_And take my whole life too_ _  
’Cause I can’t help falling in love with you_

Rodney felt something cool press into his palm, and when John let go of his hand, Rodney saw -

A band of gold.

A ring.

“Marry me?” John asked.

Rodney said, “Yes,” and kissed him.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Brumeier and SherlockianSyndromes for helping me pick a song. I recommend the Ingrid Michaelson version.


End file.
